


Sleepless

by ToxicPineapple



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Conversations, Cuddling, Depression, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort (ish), M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Game, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Death, Referenced Nightmares, Sleepless nights, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide mention, Trauma, Uncomfortable Conversations, introspective, virtual reality au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 00:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21027224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: But Shuichi is the worst about it, especially after getting out of the simulation. Now that they look to him as a leader, he doesn’t feel like he can express his weaknesses.And that’s probably why he’s spilling his soul in the dark, where the only other occupant of the room is supposedly asleep, and nobody can force him to meet their eyes.---Shuichi admits something to Kokichi while he's pretending to be asleep, and it has to be addressed.





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> mmm love me a good ol' SUICIDE TRIGGER WARNING
> 
> https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines
> 
> get help bitchass suicide is really UNEPIC

Kokichi finds that, if he’s having a sleepness night, all he really has to do is go over his multiplication tables in his head until his desire to stop living overpowers him and he falls asleep in a desperate attempt at dying.

That’s a lie. Kokichi hates math but it’s not something that would make him suicidal. He has a lot of other, more  _ real  _ things in his life right now that would make him suicidal. Or could make him suicidal, if he was that type of person. Sometimes when he closes his eyes his mind goes,  _ is there cool metal under my back?  _ and he feels those phantom pains in his shoulder and back again, from where he, the villain, (the antagonist, actually) was shot by two of the heroes, and then all  _ over,  _ from where the press came down hard, and he thinks  _ yeah, maybe a release from all of this would be cool. _

But actually, he’s not suicidal, and that’s the truth. Dying? He’s tried that before. It sucked. It really did. Lying down and waiting for that stupid hunk of metal to come down on him- not ideal. And of course that wasn’t for  _ real.  _ It was in the simulation, and nothing in the simulation was real. But his memories of dying are real. The cold emptiness that cut right through him, like being suffocated while unconscious, not even aware of his existence… it was just really shitty, that’s the truth. He didn’t like it one bit. He’d escape his problems with other crappy coping mechanisms. Not suicide. That’s not his schtick.

Tangents aside, Kokichi is having a sleepless night, and the multiplication tables aren’t helping him. He keeps his eyes shut, though, because Shuichi (who’s sleeping behind him, an arm tucked around his ribs) has troubles enough sleeping at night, and he doesn’t want to keep him up if he’s finally managing to catch a wink. Besides, listening to his breathing, all calm and even like that, Kokichi thinks he could  _ conceivably  _ fall asleep. If he just heard Shuichi’s breathing and nothing else. That’d be cool.

It took a lot of heckling for the doctors to let them sleep in the same hospital room. Not really, actually. Just a couple late-night wake up calls from Shuichi’s full-body-screaming night terrors and the realisation that Kokichi is the only one who can really talk him out of it. Even then, they were still hesitant, but they chose to value their like of sleep over their distrust of Kokichi.

Which is pretty chill. Annoying, too, that there was distrust to begin with, because they’re  _ doctors,  _ as in  _ professionals,  _ and it’s super  _ not professional  _ to be all mean and distrustful towards a  _ patient,  _ but Kokichi knows what it is. They watched that stupid killing game. And they enjoyed it for a while. They probably hated him in it, hated him for the persona that he displayed, just like everyone else.

That’s fine, though. That was the idea. The point of acting that way. Kokichi doesn’t mind if those doctors hate him, even, because they’re not good people if they liked that stupid show to begin with. That show that kidnapped unassuming teenagers and brainwashed them into thinking they consented. No one with taste would like something so depraved. But of course, there’s no end to how disgusting humanity can be, is there? (He’s starting to think Kaede has a point sometimes, on those days when she spaces off and stops talking about believing in people, replacing those words about teamwork and trust with mumbles about how much she loathes humanity. Kaede never loathed humanity, of course, but after what happened to them, the person they showed her as being in the simulation… she quickly learned to.)

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Kokichi closes his eyes. He needs to at least try to sleep, if he doesn’t wanna be dead on his feet tomorrow. He can still lie, yeah, but it’s more emotionally taxing now that he’s actually close to someone than it was in the game. Curse Shuichi and his soft voice and his pretty eyelashes for winning him over. Kokichi just wants to prank people and laugh and not have to deal with all that vulnerability stuff. He hates (well, doesn’t hate, more like, is annoyed by) the way that Kaito pounds him on the back in the mornings now rather than sighing at him, and Maki still glares at him but sometimes she snorts at his jokes, and Kaede scoots over to make room for him at meal times and stupid dummy people make conversation with him- awh. He really misses being the bad guy sometimes. All that touchy feely stuff sucks.

His thoughts cut off abruptly when Shuichi’s voice murmurs, “Are you awake, Kokichi?”

And he’s half tempted to reply,  _ sure am! I’m as awake as Jesus was on Easter!  _ but something keeps him from speaking. Maybe how wide-awake Shuichi’s voice sounds, suggesting that Kokichi hasn’t been the only one up all night, or maybe just the way his arms around the (former?) supreme leader’s waist are slightly stiffer than normal. Whatever the case, Kokichi keeps his mouth shut, and that pretty much counts as a lie. An implicit no. Telling Shuichi that he’s fast asleep, and can’t hear him.

“Ah. I figured.” Fingers slide into Kokichi’s hair and it takes a lot not to lean into the touch as Shuichi untangles the knots in it. His touch is always so gentle, it’s startling at times. “I should be… telling you this when you’re awake, not when you’re asleep, but…” he pauses, like he’s hesitating, and in the dark Kokichi imagines him biting his lip, glancing off to the side with his eyes half-lidded while he contemplates what to say next. He always puts so much thought into his words, his actions. Too much thought. “I just can’t find… the energy to.”

Kokichi wants to urge him to go on, to spill it already, but he remains still and silent. This is lying, he knows, and technically even violating Shuichi’s privacy. Whatever the other man is saying, he’s saying it because he thinks Kokichi is asleep, and can’t hear him. Not only is he not asleep, but he can also hear him, which means that neither of those conditions under which Shuichi is disclosing this information are met. Which means Kokichi is doing a bad thing. And he shouldn’t be. But he doesn’t make a move, he just keeps lying there, waiting for Shuichi to speak again.

“I… keep thinking about… back in the sixth trial. When… when we were facing off against Shirogane.” Shuichi’s voice is impossibly quiet, but he’s close enough that Kokichi can feel his breath tickling the back of his neck, so his words are heard nonetheless. “I was so ready to die. I was willing to sacrifice myself to end all the killing games.” He tightens his arms around Kokichi’s waist slightly, perhaps without meaning to, without realising he’s doing it. “I was staring death in the face and there was a large part of me that was just… ready for it to happen.”

He pauses for a moment, his breath ragged, and Kokichi wonders about the effort that it’s taking for him to say this. Wonders how long he’s been ruminating about this, how long it’s been trapped inside of him, bouncing around like the ball on a computer screensaver. Shuichi bottles things up, he keeps them all inside, because he doesn’t want to burden anybody. That is something that, arguably, every member of their class does. Kirumi. Kaede. Gonta. Kaito. Kokichi himself, too, though he supposes that he at least tends more towards being distrustful than hating to burden other people- just like Rantaro, he thinks idly. But Shuichi is the worst about it, especially after getting out of the simulation. Now that they look to him as a leader, he doesn’t feel like he can express his weaknesses.

And that’s probably why he’s spilling his soul in the dark, where the only other occupant of the room is supposedly asleep, and nobody can force him to meet their eyes. “I… wanted it to happen,” Shuichi whispers, sounding as though the words are strange for him to say, as though he’s never said them before. “I wanted… to get executed. I wanted to die, like everyone else. I didn’t think it was worth it, continuing to live, when so many other people had died. I didn’t see a reason.”

That doesn’t come off as much of a surprise to Kokichi, who started wondering if Shuichi would kill himself the moment they locked eyes in the simulation, but the admission is still something like a sucker-punch to the gut. The one thing Shuichi was able to say with confidence, at the very end of his time in the simulation, was that he wanted to die. He wanted to sacrifice himself. There’s something terribly tragic about that. Kokichi wonders, if Shuichi  _ had  _ died in the simulation, would he be feeling this way? Or would he be haunted by phantom pains, like all the rest of them, dreaming about dying and then waking up all over again, realising that it wasn’t even  _ real-  _ that he can’t trust the validity of his own memories?

“And after I woke up, I thought, there it is. My reason to live. It’s back. Just like everyone else. So I stopped thinking about it. But I’ve been thinking about it again. Why I felt so… disappointed, stepping out from under the rubble in the simulation. Why sometimes everyone is talking and my brain feels so foggy and I just can’t hear anything.” Shuichi sucks in a breath, and it catches, and Kokichi half expects him to start coughing, or crying, but he does neither. He just continues to speak. “I… wish that… I had died.”

It’s such a soft admission, so anticlimactic. There’s always such a big build-up in the movies, when the main character admits that they’re suicidal. There’s lots of crying, and hugging, and then characters telling each other to live, and finding the perfect things to say… but Shuichi isn’t crying. His forehead is touching Kokichi’s back, face tilted and eyelashes fluttering against his shirt but he’s not crying. His breath isn’t even hitching, despite how stilted his words are coming out. And Kokichi has no idea what to say. Not a single one.

“I wish that it had worked, or that I had never woken up from the simulation, and the rest of you could’ve gone on.” Shuichi mumbles. “Without me, that is. Gone on without me. I don’t…” he hesitates. “I don’t know why. I don’t have a very good reason. Or a reason at all, actually. I just… I wish that I was dead.”

Can it really be that simple? Is suicidal ideation that open and shut? Kokichi wants to say  _ no,  _ it’s  _ not,  _ but it is. Shuichi doesn’t need a reason to want to die, except that he went through so much more trauma than the rest of them, and he still does. He still wants it to be over. Even if Kokichi thought he was getting better, smiling more frequently, laughing in a real way sometimes. Even if there are those happy moments, those long and peaceful nights free of nightmares.

“I’m sorry.” Shuichi breathes. “I know it’s selfish, I just-”

That’s what tips Kokichi over the edge, perhaps, the insinuation that it’s  _ selfish-  _ selfish is such a stupid word to use right now, when talking about something like suicide. If someone wants to kill themselves, selfishness or the effect on other should be the least of their concerns. Even if someone else’s reaction is an incentive for them to stay alive. It’s dumb that he would be saying that. It’s really really dumb. “You’re not gonna kill yourself, are you, Shuichi?” He flips over onto his other side, and Shuichi jumps, as though he wasn’t expecting that to happen. (That’s fair. He was under the impression that Kokichi was asleep, after all.) “Because I’ll be really mad if you do.”

“Were you- were you awake the whole-” Shuichi stutters out, and even under the cover of darkness, Kokichi can see the bewilderment on his face as he blinks, which gives way to shame, and he doesn’t wanna see that. No shame.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m a liar, y’know?” Kokichi shrugs, and then narrows his eyes, resolving to focus on what’s more important right now. “You didn’t answer my question though. Are you gonna kill yourself? Because you can’t.”

“I…” Shuichi stares at him for a long moment. His grey eyes look black in the dark, watery and not real, like an image from a memory. His lower lip wobbles when he opens his mouth to reply. His expression reads uncertainty and even as he shakes his head Kokichi knows that he’s not sure that’s the right answer. “I’m not, no. I’m not… proactive.”

“That’s a lie, though.” Kokichi frowns. “You don’t know if you are any more than I do.” And Shuichi looks away, guilty, like a small child caught stealing extra candy being reprimanded by their parent, so Kokichi reaches out and hugs him, tight and long around the middle, blinking hard and eventually just screwing his eyes shut so no tears escape and Shuichi doesn’t end up feeling bad. “I won’t let you think that you should be dead, Shuichi, that’s not fair.”

“Kokichi…” he trails off, hands frozen but not landing on Kokichi’s back, like he wants to place them but doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. “I…”

“It’s not ever gonna be easy, y’know?” Kokichi mumbles. “Recovering is bullshit. The doctors are trying to sell us something and I’m not buying it.” He inhales. “But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to give up on me. I’ve been dead before, Shuichi, it’s no fun at all. You’re not allowed to go there too.”

There’s just silence, from the other end of the conversation, and Kokichi wonders what Shuichi is thinking. Something ugly, probably, and self-hating. He wishes these conversations weren’t so one-sided. After a moment, though, the (former?) detective’s arms slide around Kokichi’s shoulders, and a nose presses into his hair. His head doesn’t get wet with any tears, and Shuichi doesn’t start trembling or sobbing, but Kokichi feels him swallow hard, like he’s trying to get a hold on himself.

“We can talk more about it tomorrow, okay? But you’re not allowed to kill yourself. I won’t let you. You need to stay alive and work through this with me.” He’s not going to give Shuichi reasons to stay alive. Odds are, he sees them everywhere, and wants to die anyway. It’s not ever as simple as  _ there’s no reason for me to live and every reason for me to die.  _ Usually there’s one reason to die, and many reasons to live. It just so happens that the negative wins out against the positive. Every time. Kokichi wishes that he wasn’t the one crying right now.

“I’m sorry.” Shuichi murmurs.

“What are you sorry for?” Kokichi pulls back, meeting his eyes in the dark. “Telling me the truth? Or are you sorry that I heard you?” He reaches up and touches Shuichi’s face, watching the detective’s eyes flit around and land everywhere in the room except on Kokichi’s. “Just- let me hold you for a bit, okay? And then… we’ll talk. I won’t tell anyone what you told me, but you need to know that you can’t die. You just can’t.”

There’s another one of those silences, with Shuichi just looking at him, and processing it, and then he nods his head, closing his eyes. A quiet  _ okay  _ leaves his lips and he brushes the tears from Kokichi’s face, the ones he didn’t realise he let fall. Dumb of him to let them escape. He usually has more control than that.

Thoughts of tears and the morning go out the window when Shuichi tucks himself into Kokichi’s arms, and they both quiet down again, breaths synching up automatically. Kokichi forces himself not to cry, because he can probably do that later, alone in a bathroom, and peppers Shuichi’s head with kisses before closing his eyes again, trying to relax into unconsciousness. He needs to figure out how to deal with this, how to talk to him about it. All the perfect things to say that’ll make Shuichi wanna live again. He knows they don’t really exist, that there’s no such thing as the perfect thing to say, but… he’ll try anyway. Because Shuichi is worth it.

(The morning comes, when they’re supposed to talk about it, and they sleep right until eleven, and stay in bed even after that, talking in quiet voices about a bunch of unimportant things. But the subject comes up eventually. And they figure it out together.)

**Author's Note:**

> jkadfjkdsfhds I don't write enough Oumasai hellooo
> 
> in other news I've been binging Rovelae's angsty post-game Oumasai pieces recently and... yum. I had to make one of my own tbh but like same nighttime vibes, different energy. you know how it be
> 
> bruh writing as Kokichi... kinda epic ngl them's the boys yknow
> 
> uhhh what else... nothing else ig. this idea came to me while I was sitting in a cafe
> 
> hope you enjoyed
> 
> (also this isn't a vent it's just,,, yknow,,, a piece. love yall <3)


End file.
